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From Our Own Correspondent: A bitter winter in Afghanistan

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28/01/2023 GMT

A bitter winter in Afghanistan

BBC World Service - From Our Own Correspondent, A bitter winter in Afghanistan

Freezing weather and Taliban curbs on NGOs bite hard; stories from Peru, Russia and Spain.

Afghan families freeze while NGOs struggle to help; the grudges fuelling chaos in Peru; Russia mutes its LGBT communities; lasting love for a fallen flamenco star in Spain.

Pascale Harter introduces dispatches from BBC correspondents, writers and reporters in Afghanistan, Peru, Russia and Spain.

Afghanistan is enduring its harshest winter for a decade, with more than half of the country’s 28 million people in need of humanitarian aid – whether it’s money, food or fuel – to survive. At the same time, the Taliban in control of Afghanistan’s government have ordered a ban on NGOs employing any women – who would have been vital to delivering aid to Afghan families. Lyse Doucet travelled north from Kabul through the snow-ridden Salang Tunnel to see how some in Parwan province are trying to survive. 

Peru has had six presidents in the past five years – and the turmoil in its democracy recently hit a new level of dysfunction. After the former, left-wing President, Pedro Castillo, was removed from power, his former deputy Dina Boluarte has taken over. But she’s faced a wave of violent protests across the country, and appeared to back a hardline crackdown by the security forces in response. Mitra Taj reports from Lima on the grievances which are now back out in the open. 

For some years, the Russian state and Vladimir Putin have spoken with one voice on the issue of LGBTQ rights - what it considers a decadent Western obsession with no place in Russia. That was the rationale for previous laws banning so-called 'gay propaganda' – which have now been expanded. In Saint Petersburg, Will Vernon met a 'monster drag queen' and the organiser of the country’s first gay art exhibition, and heard their fears for the future. 

Today, some people see flamenco music – with its complex rhythms, impassioned singing and dramatic guitars – as almost a cliché of Spanish culture. It’s central to the country’s international image. But it’s also the music of an often marginalised community, the gitanos or 'gypsies' – and so heroes of the flamenco world can take on an outsized importance. Guy Hedgecoe travelled to the home town of legendary flamenco singer Camaron de la Isla, who’s still revered more than 30 years after his death.

Producer: Polly Hope

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